


Under The Skin

by BearlyWriting



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [18]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Acid, Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood and Injury, Burns, Career Ending Injuries, Gen, Gore, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Permanent Injury, Physical Disability, Physical Therapy, Prompt: Burns, Protective Jason Todd, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21705097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BearlyWriting/pseuds/BearlyWriting
Summary: "This is exactly what Jason means about Gotham’s villains. Two-Face can’t just shoot Dick, or beat him, or, hell, mutilate him a little. It has to be a fucking performance. It has to be totally goddamn insane."For the prompt "Burns" for the Bad Things Happen Bingo.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1271933
Comments: 69
Kudos: 450





	1. Chapter 1

The problem with Gotham, Jason thinks bitterly, is that everyone has a fucking gimmick. No one seems capable of doing anything in this city without putting on a goofy outfit first: Freeze, Catwoman, the Riddler, the Joker – fucking Batman can’t fight crime without his fur suit. It wears thin after a while. Jason is tired of the overwrought jokes and the overly-contrived crimes. What happened to the good old-fashioned thugs? What happened to a classic get-your-hands-dirty beating? Jason would take that over Batman’s rogue gallery any day. He would take a punch to the face over sitting here listening to Two-Face rattle on about chance and probability and rolling that fucked up coin between his fingers in a heartbeat.

“I’m a fair man,” Dent is saying, the coin flashing beneath the glare of the bare bulb above them: warehouse-torture-room aesthetic at its finest. 

Jason snorts and Dick throws him a look that’s almost physical. It’s easy to ignore, though – Jason’s had plenty of practice. 

“If you want it to be fair, then untie us and fight us properly.” 

That earns him a cold look, but not much else. One day that sort of goading will work – until then Jason will have to make do with tugging fruitlessly at the cuffs binding his hands behind him again and snarling. 

“I’m a fair man,” Dent repeats. He smiles with the side of his face that isn’t mangled flesh and exposed bone. “You’ve both been poking around where you shouldn’t be. I should kill you for that, but I want to give you a chance.” 

Flash, flash, flash, goes the coin. Watching it makes Jason feel dizzy and he has to shut his eyes to stop the room from spinning, has to tighten his throat against the anxiety that’s slowly expanding in his stomach. A 50-50 chance. That’s Two-Face’s shtick. Not the most inventive gimmick in the world, but with a face like his, Jason supposes there aren’t many other options. Except not becoming a homicidal maniac, of course, but then, Jason doesn’t have much room to judge on that count. 

Footsteps, loud against the concrete floor. A shadow falls across Jason. When his eyes snap open, almost automatically, Two-Face is standing over him, leering down at him. Jason tries to jerk away but there’s not much space to put between them whilst he’s tied to a chair. 

Two-Face grins. Scarred fingers grip Jason’s chin, tilting his head up. “You first, I think.” 

Flash, flash, flash. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason can see Dick’s face, pale and tense, attention focused like a laser-point to the press of fingers against Jason’s skin. 

“Red Hood doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Dick snaps, because he’s too stupid and self-sacrificing to not draw attention to himself. “If you really want to be fair, you’ll let him go.” 

Because that has always worked for them. 

Two-Face ignores him, of course. 

“This side –“ The coin stops spinning. Two-Face holds it up between his fingers, the smooth side facing out. “- and you get to go unscathed. This side –“ A twist, then it’s the scarred side facing them. “- and I leave you with a little reminder of exactly why you should stay away.” 

Jason rolls his eyes. Which came first, he wonders? Is it Batman’s fault that all of the villains in Gotham are like this? Or is Batman a product of whatever chemical is clearly floating around in the air too? He wishes Two-Face would let go of him. Wishes that he and Dick hadn’t crashed the villain’s party in the first place. 

“Get on with it,” he snarls, because he can’t figure out how to get out of his bonds with Two-Face standing so close, and he’s been sitting in this chair for long enough that his ass has gone numb. 

The coin flips up into the air and Jason tightens his gut to prevent his stomach from doing the same. It lands in the palm of Dent’s hand with a soft thud. The villain glances at it, and Jason struggles to read his face, but it’s difficult to parse an expression from the mess of scars. Then the coin is extended towards him. Shiny side up. Jason breathes a soft sigh of relief. Beside him, Dick strains in his own bonds, trying to get a look at Jason’s fate. 

“Lucky,” Two-Face murmurs, but he’s smiling that creepy half-smile. Jason can’t tell if he’s angry or not. At least he lets go of Jason’s face, finally, if only to stalk across the warehouse towards Dick. “Your turn.” 

“Let Red Hood go first – that was your bargain.” 

“No,” Jason snaps, because he’s tired of feeling so out of control here and he’s tired of Dick throwing himself on the fire every fucking chance he gets. Jason doesn’t need anyone to coddle him, and he definitely doesn’t need Dick martyring himself for his sake – if only because the others would never forgive him for letting golden boy get hurt when Jason’s here to take the punishment instead. “Take that as Nightwing’s toss and do mine again. Or better yet, let us go and fight us properly.” 

Two-Face just shakes his head, still smiling. The effect is unnerving – that bright flash of teeth that shouldn’t be visible even in the widest grin. 

“Cute.” He stops in front of Dick’s chair. The vigilante glares up at him with a surprising amount of venom. “You both get your own chance with fate. Then you can both go free when I say you can go free.” 

There’s another flash. The soft thud of metal against flesh. Jason can’t help straining forward, even as he works desperately at the cuffs around his wrists whilst Two-Face is distracted. The metal is digging painfully into his flesh, scraping the skin raw. Something warm trickles over his hands – blood probably, but Jason doesn’t have time to care about that. If he can just get the leverage he needs to break his thumb… 

“Oh dear.” 

One hand stretches out towards Dick. For a long moment, Dick just stares into Dent’s face, gaze locked resolutely on his. Then, as if he can’t help himself, he looks down. Dick recoils. It’s not hard to guess which side came up. 

Shit. 

Shit, this is bad.

“You cheated,” Jason manages, voice a low, gruff growl. It makes him sound uncomfortably like the Batman, he knows, but he can’t soften his voice when his anxiety is crawling up his throat and choking him. “You fucking cheated.” 

Two-Face is on him before Jason even registers the movement. An arm slams hard into Jason’s throat, jerking his head up and rocking him backwards. Pain spears from the point of impact, racing down his spine, setting alarms blaring through Jason’s head. He tries to gasp a startled breath but he can’t suck any air past the press of Harvey’s arm. Pain and pressure lock his throat tight. 

“Say that to my fucking face,” Two-Face snarls, inches from Jason’s nose. 

Jason struggles. Gasps. The chair is tilted back dangerously, threatening to spill him onto the floor at any moment, but Jason can’t pull himself upright with Two-Face holding him down. Can’t drag in enough air to get the words out. 

“Hey! Red Hood goes free. That’s what the coin said. You can’t touch him. Hey!” 

Even through the fog of panic, Jason can hear the fear in Dick’s voice. It sends his heart rocketing against his chest. Has his pulse throbbing beneath Two-Face’s arm. 

For a long moment, the villain doesn’t move. Then, finally, he pulls away. Jason rocks forward at the release of pressure, gasping in a solid breath of stale, dusty air. Instinctively, he tries to reach for his throat, but the cuffs hold him just as helpless as Two-Face had. 

“You’re right,” Two-Face says, calmly, smoothing down his suit, as if he hadn’t just launched himself across the room to strangle Jason. As if he isn’t holding them captive in a sketchy warehouse, threatening them, hurting them. “The coin has decided you go free, Hood. But don’t test me. I can always flip again.” 

Jason’s throat is still too tight to manage a scathing reply. He settles for baring his teeth, glaring as darkly as he can manage. Two-Face seems entirely unconcerned, turning away from him to focus his attention back on Dick. 

“You’re not so lucky, huh?” 

One hand braces against the back of Dick’s chair as Two-Face leans down until he’s right in the vigilante’s face. Dick doesn’t react, just stares back evenly. It’s hard to tell if the confidence is fake or not. Jason knows that Two-Face scares his brother. Knows that Dick still has nightmares, sometimes, from when the villain had beaten him senseless with a baseball bat well before Jason’s ill-fated turn as Robin. Jason understands that.

“Cat got your tongue?” Two-Face smirks. 

Scarred fingers twist through Dick’s hair and jerk his head back, forcing his neck into a painful-looking arch. Dick snarls, teeth flashing, the muscles of his arms bunching as if he’s tugging on his restraints. From where he’s sitting, Jason can only see half of his face. Something cold and frightened blooms in Jason’s chest, an awful paranoia born of Two-Face’s proximity, Two-Face’s threats.

“Don’t touch him,” Jason snarls, and Dick’s head jerks, as if he wants to look over despite the hand in his hair holding him still.

Two-Face straightens but he doesn’t let go.

“Stop me,” he says, mildly. “If you can.” 

Jason yanks harder on his restraints, feels the skin split beneath unforgiving metal. Snarls. There’s no more give than there was before. As hard as he struggles, he isn’t getting out of these cuffs.

A smirk. “That’s what I thought.”

***

This is exactly what Jason means about Gotham’s villains. Two-Face can’t just shoot Dick, or beat him, or, hell, mutilate him a little. It has to be a fucking performance. It has to be totally goddamn insane.

“This is a joke right?”

Jason tugs harder on the cuffs. It won’t get him anywhere, but it makes him feel a little better and it’s the only thing he can do with Two-Face standing behind him, scarred hand resting heavy on Jason’s shoulder.

He isn’t in the chair anymore, although they haven’t untied his hands. Instead, he’s kneeling on the ground, cold concrete leaching the heat from his knees. There are about fifteen of Two-Face’s men milling about, waiting for the entertainment, and Jason had been stripped of his helmet and most of his gear before he’d been strapped into the chair, but he thinks he could still make a good go of it, if he could just get his hands free. Or even without his hands, if Two-Face wasn’t holding a gun, resting it casually against the back of Jason’s head.

Dick won’t be much help either, and Jason isn’t sure he can take on sixteen people on his own. His brother is more securely bound, ropes wrapping tight across his chest, winding around his arms and cinching his legs together, tethering his ankles to his bound hands to render them immobile. Oh, and he’s also dangling in the air above a wooden platform covering what Jason strongly suspects is a vat of goddamn acid.

Honestly, Gotham. Sometimes Jason feels as though he’s fallen down the fucking rabbit-hole.

“I don’t joke,” Dent says from above him, voice mild, as if he’s commenting on the weather rather than someone dangling over a vat of acid. “I do like to keep to a theme though.”

A theme. Fucking hell.

“You would think you’d stay away from acid,” Jason says, nastily. “Don’t want to fuck up the rest of your face too.”

Two-Face doesn’t rise to the bait. Jason wonders if the theatrics are just for them, or if he’s always like this. There certainly hadn’t seemed to be any themes involved when Two-Face had shot Jason’s good-for-nothing dad dead. Just a short fuse and a gun.

But then, a thug is a thug – maybe caped crusaders require more pizzazz. 

“He’s obviously jealous of my good looks,” Dick interjects, surprisingly calm for someone who’s good looks are in imminent danger. 

Jason sneers – his skin feels too tight to manage any other expression, pulled taught across the bones of his face. “Well, you could always scar the other side Harv – if you’re looking for a way to improve that mug of yours.” 

The gun presses hard into Jason’s skull, rocking his head forward until his neck aches, chin pressed into his chest, staring down at his own lap. It’s an uncomfortably vulnerable position. 

“Shut up,” Two-Face orders, voice still mild. There’s no hint of the snarl from earlier, although Jason feels the phantom press of an arm against his throat all the same.

Jason kind of wishes he _would_ lose his temper – Jason can work with anger, particularly if it’s aimed at him. Anger makes most people sloppy. Makes them react without thinking. All Jason needs is the opportunity. But Two-Face has pulled cool and collected Harvey Dent to the surface like a flip of the scarred coin that had doomed Dick earlier. 

“My boys have been promised entertainment. The coin has decreed a punishment. Nightwing is taking a little dip and you’re going to sit here and watch it. Isn’t that right boys?” 

There’s a ragged cheer. The pressure against Jason’s head lessens. For a moment he doesn’t look up, just keeps his eyes fixed on his legs, feels his heart punching against the curve of his neck. If he can’t see it, maybe it won’t happen. Maybe this is all in his head. 

Except, when he finally lifts his head it’s all still there: Dick’s still dangling from that fucking rope like a rat caught in a trap; the vat of acid is still sitting underneath him; the goons are still milling around, watching Dick with hungry eyes. The gun is still hovering close behind Jason’s head.

There’s a flash of light at the edge of Jason’s vision. That stupid coin turning over and over in Two-Face’s fingers. What Jason wouldn’t give to snatch it out of the air, toss it down a drain or bury it under the earth, or maybe throw it with enough force to bury it in Two-Face’s head.

“Take him down,” Dent says. He could be closing a case in court, listening to his voice, rather than sending an innocent man to his death.

Or maybe there’s not such a difference there after all - Jason’s never much liked lawyers.

Across the room one of Two-Face’s goons closes their fist around the lever connected to the winch system Dick is dangling from. There’s a metallic clank. A suspended moment where even the air feels still, as if not a single person in the room is breathing. Then there’s a jolt as the rope holding Nightwing in place starts to unravel, dropping Dick down towards the vat. 

“Stop!” Jason snarls. 

Panic shreds his voice to something rough and painful. He strains against his bonds, against Two-Face’s looming presence, against the fact that this is happening. A heavy hand layers over his shoulder, pressing him down as he tries to struggle to his feet. Dick drops steadily downwards. 

“It’s fine, Hood. I’m fine.” 

Because Nightwing is a martyr to the end. Because even as he’s being lowered to his death, he can’t keep his mouth shut, can’t let a moment go by without nobly sacrificing his own wellbeing. 

“Shut up,” Jason snaps. 

Behind him, Two-Face chuckles, a low, awful sound. If Jason can just get out from underneath him. If he can slip his cuffs and get across the room and pull that fucking lever back up. 

“Don’t do this, Dent. You bastard. Let him go.” 

As if begging has ever helped anyone. Two-Face ignores him. He’s breathing heavily, fingers pressing savagely into Jason’s shoulder without the protection of his leather jacket between them. Around them, Two-Face’s men jeer and laugh as Dick inches ever closer to the acid beneath him. 

His brother’s face is tight with fear now, that strange calmness completely gone, eyes huge and dark. He’s struggling, trying to gather enough momentum to swing himself out of the path of danger, but he’s bound too tightly to have much success. By now, his knees are almost touching the surface. Dick tries to pull them up, to curl them safely against his chest, but the rope between his wrists and ankles pulls taut, holding him in place. 

A hollow, frightened sort of hope carves out a space behind Jason’s ribs. It’s the same sensation he had felt, through the agony of his broken bones, his ruptured organs, as he had leaned against the locked warehouse door, waiting for his father to rescue him. It’s stupid. It’s childish. Jason, of all people, should know that you can’t rely on a last-minute rescue, knows that even Batman can be too late. If they’re going to get out of here, Jason can’t rely on the bat. The only person he can rely on is himself. 

“Wait,” Dick shouts. The whites of his eyes are bright against his dark skin. “Stop, please! Don’t-“ 

Batman isn’t going to make it. Jason isn’t even sure if Batman knows they’re here. It’s down to him. No one else is going to save them.

There’s a sharp crack as Jason’s thumb gives way. To Jason, it might as well be loud as a gunshot, but it’s mostly lost beneath the jeers of Two-Face’s men and Dick’s terrified shouts. Jason’s heart is punching so strongly against his throat that it feels a little like it might leap right out of him. He can feel the frantic throb of his pulse in his wrist. There should be pain, Jason thinks, numbly, as he slides his damaged hand out of the cuff, but instead there’s only adrenaline, bunching every muscle in his body, setting his heart ricocheting against his chest.

Two-Face isn’t looking at Jason. Instead, he’s focussed on Dick, exposed teeth and eye gleaming in the harsh light. Jason doesn’t spare any time following his gaze, or hesitating, or waiting for a better opportunity. He acts. Sweeps one leg out to catch Two-Face by the ankles. Rocks him back. Surges up to catch his flailing wrist. The arm in Jason’s grip gives with a satisfying snap beneath the pressure of his elbow and Two-Face howls. Jason lifts one leg and plants his foot solidly against the villain’s chest. The kick sends Two-Face flying, crashing to a groaning, hurting heap against the far wall.

In a matter of seconds, Jason’s arms are free, Two-Face is across the room, and Jason has a gun in his hands. When he spins to face the rest of the room, Two-Face’s men are staring stupidly, attention drawn by the sound of their leader’s scream, but no one has reached for their weapons. No one is prepared for Jason hefting the gun in his hands and opening fire. 

There’s green crowding close at the edge of Jason’s vision. A wavering, blurry quality, as if Jason is under water. As if he’s back in the Lazarus pit, drowning in toxic green, water in his mouth, his nose, his throat, pressing in against his eyes. There’s a roaring in his ears, a swelling wave of noise crashing against him. And underneath that, the sharp rapport of gunfire – his and the thugs who haven’t yet been dropped like flies. 

“Hood!”

The cry cuts through the strange, tinnitus-ring in Jason’s ears, the green-tinged fog in his head. He blinks. The voice is frightened. Someone’s in danger. There was something Jason was supposed to do.

Then Dick screams and Jason slams back into his body with a jolt like an electric shock.

The lever. Jason needs to get to the fucking lever, now.

Jason isn’t sure if he’s ever moved as fast as he does now, launching himself across the room. He gets a flash of a white, terrified face - the thug’s mouth dark and wide as Jason barrels towards him - before they collide with a force that knocks the breath out of him. 

That terrible, agonised scream cleaves the air in two. Jason fumbles. His hands are slick with sweat and blood. They slide hopelessly against the rusty metal of the lever.

Beneath him, the thug struggles for his gun. Jason smashes his fist into his face. Ignores his gurgling cry - barely hears it under the siren-pitch sound of Dick’s pain. Reaches. There’s metal under his hands and something gives and somewhere in the distance Jason hears the rattle of mechanical movement and please, please let that be Dick being pulled free.

The thug is limp beneath him. Jason pushes himself upright in a sort of daze, feeling both very far away from his body and yet strangely present at the same time. The world seems to spin around him. Some of Two-Face’s men are still standing, but no one is firing at him. Most of them are on the floor, lying groaning in pools of blood, or clutching wounds, or crouching in fear.

Above them, Dick is writhing on the end of his rope like a worm on a hook. The black material of his suit is dark around his knees. Liquid drips off of his legs in a slowing stream, splattering across the wood and concrete as he jerks and twists in his restraints. The scream has tapered into a high, choking keen. It’s...it’s a noise unlike anything Jason’s heard before. It pours icy water down his spine, tightens his skin until he feels claustrophobic in his own body, twists cold fingers through his gut.

Dick was dunked - that much is obvious. Dick is hurt. That’s acid clinging to the weave of his suit. Acid darkening his legs. For a long moment, Jason feels paralysed by the realisation. Dick is hurt, Dick is injured, and Jason doesn’t know what to do.

Get him down. That’s the first thing. Jason needs to get him safely on the floor and away from that goddamn vat. He moves almost without meaning to, as if his brain is trailing behind his body, still caught up a few seconds ago. One of the goons, startled by Jason’s sudden movement, fires off a shot. It goes wide, splinters the wall somewhere behind him. Jason doesn’t turn to look. He doesn’t care. If the bullet had ripped through his shoulder, he’s not sure if he would even have noticed.

The gun in his hands comes up automatically to return fire, but Jason doesn’t stop to aim or to check if it hit its mark. He keeps his eyes fixed on Dick. There are a set of shallow steps leading up to the platform. Jason scrambles up them. His whole focus laser-sharp on Dick, his world narrowed to the dark shape of him, the contorted twist of his legs. The rest of the room might as well not even be there. But no one fires on him.

Jason has nothing. Nothing but the gun and his own hands - his jacket, his knives, his fucking boots are all in the other room. Jason could shoot him down, but the acid is still beneath him, and if Dick falls…

But it’s not like Jason has any other choice. If he doesn’t get Dick down now, who knows what could happen. He’ll just have to catch him. He’ll _have_ to.

Jason launches himself at Dick a second before his gun goes off. For a breathless moment, Dick is free falling, dropping like a stone towards the acid below him. Then Jason collides with him, hard enough to knock the breath from both of them, sending them both crashing to the wooden platform.

Beneath him, Dick makes a choked, breathless sound of pain. Jason rolls off of him as quickly as he can. Fumbles with the ropes holding him tight. Doesn’t look at his legs even as he frees Dick’s arms and torso. Carefully avoids touching where the rope is damp and already falling apart.

Dick writhes. It’s hard to tell whether he’s trying to free himself, or just too caught up in the pain and fear and confusion. His eyes are wide and white, his mouth dark where it’s stretched around the awful little sounds of pain he’s emitting. When he finally frees his arms from the ropes, he reaches automatically for his legs, blindly, and Jason catches his wrists and holds them tight. 

Dick’s pulse thrums like a desperate bird beneath his fingers. Jason’s own pulse is beating almost as hard, a sick, throbbing rhythm at the hollow of his throat. When Jason finally glances down at his brother’s legs, his heart almost leaps right out of his mouth.

The fabric around Dick’s knees has melted away almost entirely, leaving ragged, bald patches in Nightwing’s uniform. The skin underneath is already blistering. The flesh is raw and wrinkled, pink and wet in some places, bone white or blackened in others, as if the skin is already dead. Jason has to swallow bile at the sight of it. Feels acid burn at the base of his throat.

Water. He needs water. Needs to get the acid off Dick’s skin. He should cut the uniform off too, get the contaminated fabric away. Or should he? Would removing the fabric, practically melted onto Dick in some places, only make the wound worse? He doesn’t know. He can’t remember. Jason knows that Batman taught him this - knows that first aid for burns was one of the first things he had learned. But the fog in his head is too thick and he can’t _think_.

Not that there’s much Jason can actually do. There isn’t exactly a handy water source in the middle of the huge concrete warehouse and all of Jason’s gear is piled in the other room: his comm, his jacket, his gloves. Jason is scared to touch Dick’s legs. Scared to hurt him and scared to disable himself. The last thing this situation needs is Jason with acid on his hands.

All he can seem to do is clutch at his brother’s wrists and stare, helplessly. Dick’s face is white, a wet sheen of sweat glimmering in the bare orange light. His mouth is just as wet, parted around his ragged breaths. Each exhale comes out as a whimper, little helpless noises of pain.

“Hood.”

Dick’s eyes roll sightlessly. Jason can see the whites all around them. The words are pressed out between gritted teeth.

“Hurts. Fuck. _Fuck_. Help. Jay, it hurts.”

It trails off into a high whine. Dick jerks, all of his muscles tightening, knocking his head back against the metal floor of the walkway. It looks a little like he’s having a seizure, his entire body tight and twitching. Jason tightens the fingers around one wrist and tries to cushion his head with his other hand.

“You’re OK, N,” he babbles, feeling useless. Panic draws his stomach tight, a hard, heavy ball in his gut. “You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna...B will be here. He’ll come. It’s OK.”

It’s all meaningless, but Jason doesn’t know what else to do. They can’t rely on Batman, as much as Jason might want to. Batman’s only human. It’s Jason who needs to get Dick out of here. He needs to get water. Needs medical attention.

His hands flutter over Dick’s legs, his chest, too frightened to land. Dick moans, a low, rattling sound. Jason could get him under his arms, but the last thing he wants to do is drag Dick’s ruined legs across the ground. 

“Who’s cheating now?”

The voice is surprisingly close. Jason hadn’t heard Two-Face get up. Had missed the soft thud of his footsteps beneath the sound of Dick’s pain. But the voice comes from right behind them - as if Two-Face is standing over them, and suddenly Jason is painfully aware of the fact that he had slung the gun onto the floor beside him in his haste to get to Dick. That he doesn’t have any of his gear and Dick is incapacitated and not all of Two-Face’s goons are out of commission.

He crouches low, trying to cover as much of his brother as he can. Beneath him, Dick writhes, staring blankly up at the ceiling high above them. Two-Face steps closer. Jason can feel the heat of him against his back. He tenses. 

There’s an ear-splitting crash - splintering wood and glass - and a huge, dark shape barrels through the boarded-up window. In that moment, Jason understands exactly why so many people are terrified of the Bat - his almost mythical status. Because now, a shadow against the shattered window, cape spread wide, face grim beneath the cowl, he could be a demon. A nightmare. Despite knowing that Bruce is on his side, for a moment Jason is terrified.

He ducks and Batman flies over his head. There’s a dull thud as he collides with Two-Face, then a garbled cry as the two of them shoot over the edge of the platform. Jason doesn’t turn to watch. Beneath him, Dick’s face has gone slack, his eyes half-lidded and Jason is too preoccupied with fumbling for Dick’s pulse. It’s too fast. Too weak. But it’s there, still, threading beneath his fingers.

“What happened?”

Jason starts at the sound of Batman’s voice. It’s low and strained, even gruffer than normal. Jason recognises it as panic, although not many people would. It touches Jason’s own fear, sharp and bright in his chest.

“Acid,” Jason murmurs. “Two-Face dunked him. I got him out before...but his - his legs…”

A hand lands on Jason’s shoulder, warm and firm and reassuring, and Jason hates how grateful he is for that small touch. Hates how, despite everything, Jason was relying on Bruce showing up.

Batman crouches beside him. There’s a water pouch in one hand, drawn from the recesses of his cloak. His mouth is tight and pinched as he pours most of its contents carefully over Dick’s legs.

Jason can’t help himself. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Batman ignores him. Reaches up to touch the comm hidden in his cowl before sliding a knife out of his utility belt and slicing it carefully across the ruined fabric covering Dick’s legs. Batman’s gloves are thick black leather. Jason wonders if it’ll be protection enough, or if Bruce just doesn’t care.

“Agent A?”

Jason can’t hear Alfred’s reply without his own comm but it must be immediate, because Bruce launches right into the situation with barely enough time to draw breath.

“Nightwing is injured. At least second degree acid burns, possibly third degree. Basic triage applied.”

The knife slices through fabric like butter. The dark exoskeleton of Dick’s suit peels away beneath his hands. The flesh underneath is raw and wet - an awful, gory mess. Jason has to stare hard at Batman’s hands to keep from gagging.

“We’re heading back to the manor, but we’ll need an ambulance to meet us there. I think this is beyond our capabilities.”

Can Alfred hear the muted terror in Bruce’s voice? The little tremble? The low rasp at the back of his throat? Probably better than Jason can, but Jason hears it well enough to have his skin prickling, to have his heart rocketing against his chest.

Most of Dick’s suit, from the top of his thighs to his ankles, is stripped now, lying in tattered, half-melted shreds around him. Some of Dick’s flesh had gone with it, adhered to the fabric in a way that has bile surging up the back of Jason’s throat. Dick is still unconscious, thank God, face loose, chest rising with too-shallow breaths.

“Help me with him,” Batman murmurs as he rinses his gloves with the last of the water. Then he unclips his cloak, tucking it carefully around the open wound that is Dick’s legs.

Jason moves dumbly as Batman orders him. Hooks his arms under his brother’s armpits. Batman cradles Dick’s legs as carefully as he can, fumbling to find a spot that isn’t as badly damaged. Still, when they lift Dick into the air it must hurt, because he jerks back into consciousness as if electrocuted, eyes white and wide and rolling in his head. Jason tightens his grip to stop Dick writhing right out of his arms and Dick lets out a punched-out little noise of pain.

“Calm down, Nightwing,” Bruce orders, voice a low growl, and Dick goes still and quiet with a strangled whimper, as if he can’t help himself obeying.

“B? Hurts. My - my legs -“

“You’re OK,” Batman reassures - or maybe that’s an order too. Maybe if Batman says it sternly enough, Dick will be forced to make it true.

“Told you B would get here,” Jason murmurs. His own pathetic reassurance.

Batman’s head jerks up. Through the flat white lenses of his cowl, it’s difficult to read his expression, but Jason thinks that’s something like grief in the tight lines around his mouth. Something like guilt in the way he ducks his head.

“I’m here,” Batman agrees, although it’s clear that Dick isn’t listening. “Hold on Nightwing, we’re getting you home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed :) 
> 
> There is a second part to be posted soon! Don't worry - I couldn't just end it like that ;)
> 
> I have a tumblr at [bearly-writing](https://bearly-writing.tumblr.com/) if you fancy dropping by for a chat!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone that read, kudosed, bookmarked, and especially commented on my first chapter! If you've read any of my other stories you'll know I'm not very good at comfort or at endings but hopefully you guys enjoy this follow-up! :)
> 
> Also, quick disclaimer that I am not a medical expert and I do not have first-hand experience with serious burns. If I've made any glaring mistakes feel free to point them out!

“It’s my fault.”

Jason isn’t sure why he says it, because it isn’t - he _knows_ it isn’t. But the words bubble up out of his throat without permission. Drop, heavy as stones, into the stillness of the air.

Bruce lifts his head - with what looks like a monumental effort - to meet his gaze. Jason is hovering in the doorway, afraid to step fully into the room. There’s no reason not to, but Jason is hesitant to disturb the morbid plateau: Dick still and silent and horribly lifeless on the bed, Bruce leaning over him, head cupped in his hands, like a man seeking benediction.

Bruce looks at him for a long time in silence. Then: “Is it?”

Maybe Jason was trying, subconsciously, to get in ahead of Bruce. Sometimes it’s easier to get the blame out there - to know exactly where everybody stands rather than waiting for all of the festering hatred to explode. If Jason holds his hands up now, it will be one less thing for Bruce to throw back in his face later.

Jason shrugs. “It was my mission. Dick wasn’t even supposed to be on it.”

“You both made a mistake,” Bruce says, calm and reasonable and Jason hates him a little bit for it. “It was no one’s fault.”

“I should have tried harder to take his place.”

Bruce’s face tightens, brows pulling low over his eyes, mouth a black line. He turns fully in his chair to face Jason. “Don’t say that.”

Jason shrugs. “Why not? It’s what everyone is thinking.” And he hates the little tremble in the words but he can’t flatten it out. “It would have been better for you if I’d taken a dunk. One less problem to -“

“Don’t say that,” Bruce snaps, sudden and loud enough that Jason flinches. Then, softer: “Nobody thinks that. Not me and certainly not Dick.”

The reminder has Jason turning back to the bed. Not that he can really see his brother through the mess of wires and the white sheets pulled up to Dick’s chin. He was awake earlier, before he had been rushed into surgery, clinging to Jason’s hand with bruising strength, asking alternately for Bruce or John Grayson or his dad - and who knows who he had meant by that. Bruce’s face had just gotten grimmer and grimmer until Dick had been whisked away and Jason had slipped into the background in a way he’d had mastered since childhood.

Even without looking at him, Jason can feel the weight of Bruce’s gaze, heavy against his face, before Bruce drops his eyes back to the lumpy bed sheets covering Dick’s legs. Something pinches in Jason’s chest, tight and painful. Hesitantly, he steps into the room and rests a careful hand on Bruce’s back. It’s more physically affectionate than either of them have been for a long time, but Bruce doesn’t shrug him off and Jason will admit - not to _Bruce_ , of course - that it’s nice to comfort him.

“He’ll be alright though, won’t he?”

And maybe it’s more of a reassurance for himself than it is for Bruce. And maybe his voice shakes a little as he says it.

Bruce shrugs, huge shoulders rolling under Jason’s palm.

“They don’t know. He’ll need more surgeries, and if the grafts don’t work, they’ll have to consider amputation.”

Amputation. Jesus. For some reason Jason had imagined Dick bouncing right back - a few weeks of recovery, maybe. Maybe some new scars. Some reduced mobility. Not amputation. Not...this.

“He’ll never be Nightwing again.”

A strange, electric shock shoots down Jason’s spine. The vigilante’s name seems so sharp and loud in the muted hush of the hospital room. Strange and too large in Bruce’s mouth. Jason is used to the name spoken in Batman’s gravelly tones. Hearing it in the small, defeated voice of his dad is an uncomfortable shock.

And trust Bruce to be worried about _that_ above anything else.

“Who fucking cares about that? He could - he could have died! He’ll be scarred for fucking life!”

The expression on Bruce’s face when he turns to Jason honestly scares him a little. There’s a storm behind Bruce’s dark eyes. Lines around his mouth so deep that they could be carved into his flesh. 

“How dare you -“

“No!” Jason interrupts, too loud, too sharp, and his voice cracks pathetically over the words. “How dare you. He’s more than what he’s _worth_ to you. He’s more than -“

Bruce surges out of his chair so suddenly that Jason flinches. Despite how much Jason has grown, how much he’s filled out, how much muscle he’s packed on, he still feels terribly small beneath Bruce’s towering figure. Even as a civilian, Bruce’s anger is something dangerous. 

“Don’t,” Bruce snaps and his voice does not crack. “Don’t you dare presume that I only care for _my son_ because of what he can do.”

Jason sneers nastily, fear turned to anger. It’s always been Jason’s fallback. When he was small and vulnerable on the streets, it was better to be angry than scared. Even now, Jason prefers the hot rush through his veins to that cold, creeping chill.

“Your son?” He scoffs. Gets right in Bruce’s face. Refuses to back down. “That’s a bit fucking rich. When have you ever -“

A small noise cuts Jason off before he can finish his scathing retort. In the silence that follows, he can hear that the steady, rhythmic beeping in the background of the room has sped to something frantic. Then, another soft noise. Bruce’s head whips to the bed a half-second before Jason’s does. Then Bruce is leaning over it, one hand dropping to Dick’s head, the other resting gently on his arm.

“Dick?” And his voice has dropped to something soft and quiet and warm. Something that makes Jason’s chest hurt and his throat feel too dry. “Are you awake, chum? You’re OK.”

Dick’s head rolls against the pillow. His eyes are half-open, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. His mouth is slack, dark and wet. His throat works.

“Bru’sssss?” 

“I’m here.” One big hand strokes through Dick’s hair. His eyelashes flutter again. “I’m here chum. Can you open your eyes?”

“Nnnnnn’”

But Jason can see the gleam of blue eyes under his lids. One of Dick’s hands comes up to fiddle with the cannula resting beneath his nose and Bruce catches his wrist and pins it gently to the bed.

“Don’t touch that,” Bruce murmurs. And it’s so like Bruce had sounded in those early days, when Jason had been sick, or had a nightmare, or just felt a bit down, that it makes the back of Jason’s throat feel wet.

“Jay?” Dick asks, slurring the word like a drunkard.

“He’s right here.”

Bruce’s eyes lift to meet Jason’s. There’s a warning in his gaze, dark and heavy, and Jason peels his lip back in a sneer. Jason doesn’t need to be told to behave. It’s not Dick he’s angry at.

“I’m here, Dickie-bird.”

When Jason steps up to the bed, Dick’s eyes focus on him with startling clarity. It’s as if a switch has been flipped - as if Dick has suddenly come back to himself. His eyes are bright and sharp, assessing. 

“You’re OK,” Dick murmurs, almost to himself, except Jason and Bruce are both crowded close enough to hear him.

Jason’s throat feels too tight. Of course Dick would be worried about _him_.

“I always am.” Jason manages a tight smile. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. He isn’t entirely sure what to do with them. Doesn’t know if he should touch Dick or not. “You should worry about yourself, huh?”

And that’s probably the wrong thing to say, because Dick’s face goes tight and the heart rate monitor speeds and Bruce shoots him a glare from across the bed.

“How bad is it?” Dick whispers. And he isn’t looking at Jason anymore, or at Bruce, staring blankly at the ceiling instead.

For all his faults, Bruce has never shied away from telling them the truth. Never hidden that sort of thing from them. He grimaces, but he doesn’t tiptoe around the subject. He tells Dick, in a surprisingly calm voice: “You have third and second degree burns on your thighs, knees and shins. They’ve stabilised you as best they can with grafts taken from your back.”

He swallows around the last word. Dick doesn’t react, just stares blankly upwards, jaw tight.

“You’ve suffered serious nerve damage. It’s - it’s unlikely that you’ll ever regain full mobility. And if the grafts don’t take they’ll have to consider amputation.”

It’s too blunt and Dick takes the words like a blow, head jerking, eyes clenching shut. “Amputation?” He manages, squeezed out between his teeth.

“I’m sorry.”

Dick shakes his head. Bruce’s fingers tighten around his wrist but Dick doesn’t even seem to notice, as if his arms are as disconnected from him as his legs. A tear slips over his cheek, silvery in the fluorescent glow of the hospital lights, bright against his dark skin.

“Do you need more pain meds?” Bruce asks, grim and uncomfortable, the hand not gripping Dick’s wrist hovering over the morphine drip snaking into Dick’s arm.

Typical. Sometimes Jason forgets exactly how emotionally constipated Bruce is.

“No,” Dick croaks, eyes still shut. Another tear follows the first. “I need this to not have happened.”

Jason’s chest hurts. He should have tried harder. If he had gotten free earlier...if he had convinced Harvey to let him take Dick’s place…

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispers. 

His hands clench, then unclench again. Hesitantly, Jason touches Dick’s shoulder, ready to pull away if Dick shrugs him off. He doesn’t. Instead, Dick turns, opening his eyes to meet Jason’s gaze. They’re wet with tears, hazy with pain, or maybe with the morphine pumping into his veins.

“I’m so sorry. I should have - I should have gotten you out sooner. I should have tried harder to take your place. I -“

He swallows. Can’t finish. Across the bed, Bruce is frowning at him. His gaze feels heavy against Jason’s skin.

Dick frowns too, a slow crease across his face. When he blinks, his eyes stay shut a fraction of a second too long.

“Shut up,” he says, but there’s no heat behind the words, just a bone-deep tiredness, the soft edge of exhaustion.

The hand that Bruce isn’t holding onto lifts to grip Jason’s wrist, connecting them in an awkward chain. Like they’re at a seance or something. The urge to reach across the bed and take Bruce’s other hand is surprisingly strong. Jason ignores it.

“Just shut up.” A wet swallow. A hitching breath. “God. Why does everything - just stop it. It’s not your fault. It’s just -“

This time when he swallows, it sounds more like a gag. Across the bed, Bruce looks devastated, so pained that Jason feels like he’s taken a blow to his chest. Dick’s eyes slide shut, his face tense, and more tears slide over his cheeks. After a long moment his face goes slack. The rapid beeping of the monitor eases into something less frantic.

Bruce slumps like a puppet with its strings cut. An answering hollowness carves out Jason’s chest. When Bruce looks back up at him, Jason has to swallow hard against the sudden, swollen lump in his throat.

“He’s right, Jason,” Bruce says, so softly that Jason almost doesn’t hear him. “This wasn’t your fault.”

For a long moment, Jason just stares back at him, throat working, struggling against the bile trying to surge up from his churning stomach. 

Then, finally: “Fuck you,” spat from between his teeth. “I don’t need you to...I don’t need your permission.”

Something hot presses behind his eyes, swelling in the hollows of his skull. Pins and needles prickle over his face, his neck, his chest, tightening his skin. The words feel solid in his throat. Bruce just looks at him, evenly.

“Fuck you,” Jason manages again, before he turns on his heels and storms out.

***

“Just a few more.”

“I can keep going.”

Jason doesn’t think Dick can. The words are so tight that Jason is surprised they didn’t snap against his teeth and Dick’s face is white and bloodless, damp with tears that Jason has been pretending not to see.

“I’m sure you can,” the PT says, pleasantly, as he sets Dick’s leg carefully back on the bed and eases the other - less heavily bandaged - one into his hands. “But we don’t want to push too hard while your grafts are still healing.”

“But I need -“ Dick cuts off to grit his teeth, jaw clenching so hard that Jason can practically hear it creak as the therapist manipulates him into a careful stretch. When he manages to speak again, his voice sounds rough and wrecked. “I need to keep going. I need - I need this to work.”

Jason winces. Curls his hands into fists and presses them hard against his stomach to try to stem some of the guilt bubbling away in there. Dick sounds so small, so _broken_. It hurts to hear.

The therapist - David, Jason thinks he remembers - frowns. “You’ve been doing very well, Richard, and your...enthusiasm for physical therapy is certainly refreshing.” He smiles. Dick does not smile back. “But we don’t want to risk any damage.”

Even as he says it, he flexes Dick’s knee and Dick hisses in pain, hands claws around the white sheets underneath him. 

“And remember, physical therapy is important, but there is only so much it can do. This is management rather than a cure.”

They’ve heard that before. Repeatedly. Always in that same, soft voice, too professional to be pity, exactly. Don’t get your hopes up, they say, with every physical therapy appointment, every dressing change, every surgery. This might be the best it gets.

“I know,” Dick snarls in that same rough voice. “So everyone keeps saying. I don’t care. I’m going -“

There are more tears on Dick’s cheeks. An awful, wet quality to his voice.

“I’m going to get better.”

“OK,” David says, easily. He sets Dick’s leg back onto the bed. Jason half-expects him to pat Dick’s shin, the way Bruce would, if it were him, but David just folds his hands in front of him. “I think that’s enough for today.”

“No,” Dick snaps. “I want to keep going.”

“Dick…”

Dick jumps at the sound of Jason’s voice, as if he’d forgotten Jason was there. Then he scowls, whether at himself or Jason or David is hard to tell.

“ _Jason_.” Low and angry, almost a snarl. And Jason knows that Dick has a temper, maybe even worse than his own, but it’s easy to forget when Dick is usually so bouncy and cheerful and charismatic. “You know I can keep going.”

“Yeah,” Jason says, softly. “I know you can. But you should listen to the professional. You don’t need to hurt yourself.”

As if this whole thing isn’t hurting Dick. Even as he says it, he feels the heat of a flush creep up his throat, embarrassed and angry. The scowl on Dick’s face tells him exactly what he thinks about that. His hands are fists around the sheets, so tense that his knuckles are white.

“You don’t need to prove anything.” Jason knows that hits the mark because Dick looks away. Jason can see his jaw working, the twitch of his muscles beneath smooth, dark skin. “I’m serious, Dick, not to me and not to fucking Bru-”

“Shut up,” Dick snaps and Jason falls silent. Nothing Jason says is going to make Dick believe him, not if he’s already decided that Jason is wrong. There’s no point pushing him.

“OK,” David says again into the ensuing silence. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Richard. You can do some gentle stretches if you want to, but don’t push yourself, OK?”

Dick doesn’t reply, face still turned away from them both and David throws Jason a look that Jason can only blink dumbly at in return, before packing up his stuff and heading to the door.

“You did very well today, Richard. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Then it’s only Dick and Jason and a tense, awkward silence. Jason should break it, but he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to make this better.

“You should go, Jay,” Dick finally says, voice thick and wet, still staring carefully in the other direction. “You didn’t have to stay for that.”

Jason has to swallow hard against the thickness in his own throat. It hurts to see Dick like this. “I wanted to stay,” he says, soft. “I can go if you want though.”

But even as he says it, he knows he isn’t going to leave. Not unless Dick forces him to. And Dick won’t, because even hurt and angry, Dick is too goddamn _nice_.

The only reply he gets is a sob. Dick’s shoulders curl, his whole body trembles, then he makes a wet, choked sound, as if he’s suppressing more. And Jason has never been particularly physically affectionate but Dick _is_ and Jason is moving to the bed before he can think better of it, wrapping his arms carefully around his brother and pulling him against his chest.

“It’s OK,” he murmurs, that same desperate babbling as when Dick had been lying beneath him, out of his mind with pain, his skin sloughing off of his flesh. Dick sobs again, hands reaching up to clutch at Jason with surprising force and all Jason can do is press his nose into Dick’s thick hair and clutch tighter. “It’s OK, it’s OK.”

“It’s not,” Dick gasps, mouth pressed against the collar of Jason’s shirt. “It’s not. What if? What if this is it? What if this is as good as it gets?”

Dick’s fingers are clenched hard enough around Jason’s arms that he knows there’ll be bruises there, but he can’t bring himself to pull away, can’t push Dick off. His chest hurts. Feels as though he’s been hollowed out. As if his heart is beating away in an empty cavern, crashing against the walls of his ribs.

“Then you’ll be alive,” Jason murmurs, urgently. “You’re alive, Dick. You’re here. That’s all we need. That's what matters.”

“I can’t.” A hitched, breathless sob. “I can’t. What’s the point if I’m not...if I can’t be…”

Jason growls. He knows that Bruce would never have actually said that to Dick, but he can’t help but blame him for this - for the fact that Dick sees so little value in himself.

“The point is that you’re you, Dick. You’re worth more than what you can do.” 

Dick shakes his head, breaths wet and ragged.

“What if it was me?” Jason asks, bluntly. “What if I was the one who got burnt? It should have been me. I should have -”

“Stop it,” Dick says, then. And his voice is small and rough, suddenly exhausted, but the sobs have stopped at least. “Stop trying to get me to blame you, Jay. I don’t. You saved me. You...you’re here.”

“I am,” Jason says through his swollen throat. “I’m here.”

And it’s not enough. But it’s something.

***

Jason hasn’t actually spoken to Bruce since that first time Dick had woken in the hospital. It’s not unusual for them to go so long without speaking. It’s not unusual for Jason to avoid Bruce either, although it’s been far more difficult than usual. Normally, all it takes is not answering his phone when the Bats call and sticking to the areas he knows Batman won’t be patrolling. Now, he has to carefully time his visits to avoid the seemingly endless members of the family. And it’s _hard_ because sometimes it seems like they really have nothing else to do but hang around Dick’s bedside.

Jason has no idea what Dick thinks about it - whether he’s as annoyed at Bruce as Jason is, or whether he’s grateful for his father’s support. He doesn’t know what they talk about, or whether they sit in strained silence. They don’t talk much, usually, when Jason visits. And part of that is an awkwardness that’s existed between them ever since Jason came back from the dead and part of it is Jason’s guilt, thick and choking, and part of it is Dick and the sullen anger on his face and the pain that Jason can see, clear as day.

But Jason can’t avoid Bruce forever and there’s no way he’s missing Dick coming home from the hospital just because the big man is going to be there too.

“Are you comfortable?” Bruce asks, gruff, as he helps settle Dick into his wheelchair. 

Dick just grunts. There’s a tightness to his face, a tremour of pain. But when Jason steps forward, hands fluttering uselessly, unsure how to help, Dick brushes him off with a scowl.

“Seriously, I’m fine. I don’t need you two crowding me, OK?”

Jason meets Bruce’s eyes over Dick’s head. His father’s face is carefully blank, but Jason can see his own hurt, his frustration, echoed there. As much as they don’t always get on, Bruce must understand some of how Jason feels, at least.

“OK,” Jason says, taking a step back. 

Bruce’s knuckles are white around the handles of Dick’s wheelchair. Dick takes an audible breath before plastering a smile across his face. It looks unbearably fragile. Fake.

“I’m sorry.” The words are carefully even. “I’m just...stressed, I guess.”

“Don’t apologise,” Jason says, quickly. “It’s fine. You can tell me to fuck off if you want.”

This time his smile seems a little more real. “I don’t want.”

Jason smiles back. It feels stretched thin across his face, but it’s there. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Dick’s legs, the lumpy bandages and compression socks. The strange, awkward way Dick holds them. Then Bruce lays a blanket carefully across Dick’s lap and his view is obscured by faded blue cloth.

“Thanks B,” Dick murmurs and his hands find the edge of the blanket immediately, twisting the soft material between his fingers.

Bruce just lays one big hand across his shoulder. For a moment, Dick tenses, before relaxing into the touch, his head tilting to brush his cheek across the backs of their father’s knuckles. Something complicated works its way across Bruce’s face.

“You ready to head home?” Bruce asks, surprisingly softly, and for some reason that makes Jason’s chest hurt.

“Yeah,” Dick says with a sigh, head still tilted to rest his cheek against Bruce’s hand. “Yeah, lets go home.”

They’ve got a long way to go, Jason thinks as Bruce slowly starts to wheel Dick out of the hospital room. Dick will never be Nightwing again, will never fly like he used to.

The thought makes Jason sad, touches something he’d buried deep a long time ago. It won’t be easy but Dick’s here and he’s alive and that has to be enough.

It is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed :) feel free to leave a kudos or comment if you did!
> 
> I have a tumblr at [bearly-writing](https://bearly-writing.tumblr.com/) if you fancy dropping by for a chat!


End file.
